Community Education for Sustainable Development: A Proposal for Conservation of the Bordoncillo Highlands

A team of students led by Gertrudis Quijano

Geographic focus: Colombia / highland regions

Date completed: 2002

Colombia’s highland forests play an important role in regulating the surrounding lowlands’ water supply, and this service depends on their ecological stability. A team of students from Colombia created maps and discussed how human activities threaten these valuable ecosystems. They also analyzed satellite images to identify areas of changing land use. To respond to the problems they identified through their analysis, they proposed a number of recommendations, including the creation of an inventory of natural resources in threatened areas and the establishment of a permanent channel of communication between local communities and planners.